Xterm and Readline (was: select large text with mouse)

[adamsonj@email.unc.edu (Joel J. Adamson)]

imputerate <imputerate@gmail.com> writes:

>>  first i want to fix it so i use only the bash shell and only the
>> xterm
>> terminal emulator, no matter which defaults are set for the os or
>> window
>> manager i'm dealing with;
>
>>  i'll log my progress with each step in the next couple of days;
>> thanks
>> again,imputerate
>
> o.k. already i've run into problems;
>
>
[...]

Interesting you should have these problems, because I just switched to
bash last night and I ran into a little confusion myself.  I put "source
~/.profile" in my .bashrc to make sure that the environment was carried
over to a new xterm session.  Xterm should start with whatever your
default shell is (man chsh).

> this is  a problem:
>   i have essential emacs keymappings in readline's config file, so

So you mean you put your Emacs (the text editor) mappings into inputrc,
instead of into .emacs?  You should find that the default Emacs bindings
for bash are Emacs-y enough.

> since i have these lines in both .bashrc and .bash_profile, they
> should
> work no matter how xterm invokes bash [i.e., as an interactive shell
> (login or normal), or even non-interactive shell]; or so i understand;

Hmmm... this is a good question for a bash expert: I've spent a lot more
time studing how Z Shell loads its configuration, and as I said I've
just switched (back) to bash.

> SO, how do i get bash in xterm to behave the way bash in 'gnometerm'
> did, i.e. so that i have my readline customizations on the command
> line in the bash shell?

Have you tried an empty inputrc?

> i'll surely be back soon, as i plow through the .Xresources,
> .Xdefaults configurations for xterm and emacs;

X resources are not the only way to configure the Emacs display,
although they are the best I've found for setting the default face and
background.  Same goes in xterm: it's much better than putting "-fg
white -bg black -geometry..." in every desktop icon or making it an
alias.

Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
(303) 880-3109
Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu
Homepage: http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj
Please read http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj/roe.html